by Bob Mayer
They moved slowly, allowing Thao the time to check for booby-traps. This was a much different environment than the last time they’d patrolled together in the jungle but the essence was the same. They reached the corner of the Ferry Building where the enclosed breezeway extended to Island Two and the hospital complex. They’d decided to stay out of the walkway if at all possible as it was the most likely place for an ambush or trap.
The walkway angled ahead and that was where they had decided to cut across it to get into the hospital since the field of fire in either direction would be limited. There was no door, but the windows had been broken out long ago. Thao slithered over the transom into the walkway. Then through a broken window to the other side. Kane followed.
The main hospital complex loomed. It was larger than it had appeared in the photograph and maps. Given Ellis Island had processed millions of immigrants he should have expected this. They entered the first of three buildings. Thao found the closest stairwell. Kane pulled the night vision goggles out of his ruck and powered them up. He slipped them over his head and took point from Thao. Everything was enhanced in various shades of green. The drawback was that he was viewing a two-dimensional display which negated depth perception. He slid the K on its sling over his back to rest next to the ruck and drew the High Standard. He led the way up the stairs, finger on the trigger of the pistol.
He reached the third-floor landing. Kane paused, a pain in the center of his chest. It took him a moment to recognize it: he hated hospitals. Nobody went into one because they were having a good day. It was as if the old, peeling walls were reflecting the pain and suffering that had occurred in here, even many decades ago. There was also the presence of death. Not every immigrant had made it off the island.
It was difficult to walk quietly given the amount of debris on the floor. Kane paused every few feet, listening. Thao was almost silent behind him and he was grateful for the Montagnard’s presence.
He alternated rooms on either side of the corridor, clearing them one by one. There was no indication anyone had been in here in years. Kane knelt, checking the layer of dust on the floor and it was undisturbed. He moved faster, feeling the pressure of time. They moved on to the next building, then the final one.
The three buildings were empty of intruders. Kane turned off and pulled up the goggles. He checked his watch. 12:41 AM on a new day.
“What do you think?” he whispered to Thao as they halted in the last room in the third building on the third floor, facing south. From the window they could see the trees and brush in the empty landfill separating Island Two from Three.
“Let us observe,” Thao said, indicating the dark buildings on the other side of the island. They could only see the row on this side, not the ones facing the water, which would be the likely lair of the Swords. Nevertheless, it was worth taking some time to observe.
Kane forced the ticking clock from his conscious mind. He scanned the buildings they could see with the off-center portion of his retina. After several minutes he put on the goggles and scanned again, alert for any amplified flicker of light. A cigarette would flare up like a searchlight in the goggles.
Nothing.
Kane signaled for Thao to follow. He took the southeast stairwell to the ground floor. The open area between Island Two and Three was overgrown with trees and bushes, which provided excellent concealment. Kane removed the goggles and pointed. “The boat is over there.”
Thao took the lead through the vegetation. The sound of water lapping against the seawall grew louder. Thao held up a fist and Kane froze.
Thao pointed. Ten meters away, close to the seawall, a tarp covered the zodiac. The tarp wasn’t layered in leaves or dirt, indicating it was newly emplaced. Kane had been worried that the Swords might have left the island to do some other task during the night, perhaps even search for Caitlyn at Kelly’s.
Kane indicated the goggles on his head and Thao knelt, waiting. Kane slid them down and powered up. The Staff building was twenty meters away, the broken windows like dark eyes peering at them. Kane checked them, one by one. Darkness ticking away.
A freighter going by in the main channel let off a blast of its horn. High overhead a single plane arced to a late-night landing at one of the airports.
Kane turned the goggles off and lifted them. Waited as his eyes adjusted. Looked at Thao, who tapped the side of his nose.
Kane sniffed.
Cigarette smoke. Very faint, but distinct.
Thao pointed toward the closest building which Kane had been observing through the goggles. Kane nodded. Thao led the way to the north outside wall of the Staff Building.
Kane pulled the goggles down and turned them on. He carefully low crawled over debris toward the corner. His elbows slid over broken glass, denim shirt sleeve tearing, skin scraped. He ignored that, more concerned with not making noise. He reached the corner. Inch by inch he angled his view around the corner.
No sign of the Swords, but he also couldn’t see the connecting corridor, since it ended where it branched off to the center of both buildings. Kane signaled for Thao to follow. He resumed the low crawl along the east side of the Staff Building. A bent nail on a board gouged his left knee. The southeast corner of the Staff Building was just a few meters away. His left hand touched something thin; a piece of line, two inches above the ground, extending left as far as he could reach and to a small pile of rubble at the base of the outside of the building. He felt Thao’s hand bump into the bottom of his boot.
Kane traced the line into the debris, carefully removing pieces until he uncovered the pipe bomb. The line was attached to a simple fuse on the end of the metal pipe, but there was also a small green light indicating a remote detonator, a twin of the one that had been left on the boat. The Swords weren’t relying only on passive measures such as the line, but were ready to remote detonate the homemade mines. Kane assumed the pipe was full of nails and screws, a poor man’s Claymore. He glanced left. Given the size, if it went off, it would wipe out anyone coming between the Staff Building and the sea wall.
Kane calmly released the pressure on the line and extracted the fuse, disarming the device. He looked over his shoulder and indicated for Thao to remain in place.
He moved forward and reached the corner. He scooted inch by inch to see around. He spotted a glow, the edge of the halo from the tip of a cigarette. The smoker was standing next to a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on a tripod. The muzzle of the large gun pointed toward a window in the end of the connecting corridor. But it was positioned far enough out that the fifty could be swung around and aimed toward the water.
The guard was staring down the breezeway. There was a low crackling noise and the man reached down and pulled a radio off his belt. “Three all right.” He let go of the transmit. He had an M-16 slung over his shoulder and there was a pistol in a holster.
Exactly as Kane had expected. He couldn’t see anyone else. He edged his way back until he was next to Thao. He nodded toward the direction they had come from. Like worms, they twisted around and low-crawled away. Once they were a sufficient distance, Kane whispered his plan to Thao and they prepared to make contact with the enemy.
20
Wednesday Early Morning,
10 August 1977
ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORK HARBOR
Kane walked around the corner of the Staff Building, the High Standard held at the ready. The guard at the fifty didn’t spot him until he was less than five meters away, which was too late. As he turned toward Kane and opened his mouth to shout a warning, Kane fired, the suppressed pistol making a light pfft sound.
The first bullet was slightly off, hitting the bone above the man’s closest eye, but Kane was closing the distance and firing as fast as he could pull the trigger. The second round hit the target, powered through the eyeball and shredded the man’s brain. He was nonfunctional before he hit the ground. Death would take a few more moments. Kane took no chances as he arrived, standing over the body and putting two
more rounds into the bleeding socket. He shrugged off his backpack, placing it underneath the tripod of the fifty-caliber machinegun. He pulled the radio off the man’s belt. He quickly retraced his steps, while pulling one of the walkie-talkies he’d purchased out of his pocket.
Thao was waiting for him at the corner of the building, his crossbow at the ready, scanning the Isolation Ward building on the southwest edge of the island.
“Sergeant Merrick would note one down and five to go,” Thao said in a low voice.
“He would,” Kane agreed. “Let’s see how they respond. We know there are least two more on guard duty and they can’t see the fifty.”
It took ten minutes before the next radio check. “One all right,” an Irish brogue announced.
“Two all right.”
Kane and Thao exchanged a glance. Kane had the K in his left hand, the walkie-talkie he’d brought in his right.
“Hey, Jimmy?” The first brogue inquired. “Are you pissing or something? Jimmy?”
The other voice trampled on the end of the transmission. “Jimmy? You okay, lad?”
Kane and Thao watched the building. A flashlight came alive in one of the windows of the Isolation Ward. It flickered out toward the fifty, held by a man who leaned out and yelled. “Jimmy? Wake up, you fuck.” The same man transmitted to the other guard: “He’s lying down.”
The first man radioed back. “Go kick him in the head.”
The flashlight disappeared from the window. A few seconds later the man appeared in a doorway. “Jimmy, get yer fat ass up.” He shone the light over the body. “Fuck!” He backed up a step and looked about, pulling the M-16 off his shoulder. He fumbled with the rifle and flashlight, then decided to go with the weapon, dropping the light. “Who’s out there?”
“Shit,” Kane muttered as his plan wasn’t unfolding as he wished. He keyed the radio he’d taken from the guard and did his best imitation of a brogue. “Jimmy’s hurt. He needs help! Get over here.”
The man with the rifle looked down at the radio on his waist in confusion.
“What’s going on?” the first unseen guard demanded.
The man with the rifle reached for his radio. Thao terminated that action, and him, with a bolt through the chest. The man dropped the rifle, one hand grasping the shaft sticking out of him as he dropped and the other still reaching for the radio.
“Get down here!” Kane brogued. “Get everyone!”
Thao shot him a look that indicated he was as impressed with Guns of Navarone as he had been by The Magnificent Seven. “Four.”
A man came running out of a door on the side of the connector, M-16 at the ready. He halted at the two bodies and the machinegun. Kane glanced at Thao, as he tried to make a command decision.
The radio came alive. “Jimmy and Dan are dead!” The man grabbed the handles of the fifty, swinging it about on the tripod.
A reply from a new voice. “Keep whoever’s attacking at bay. We’re blowing the bitch’s head off now!”
“Shit,” Kane muttered. Good idea, bad execution. He pressed the transmit on his walkie-talkie, sending a transmission on the frequency Merrick’s team had uncovered. The bomb he’d removed earlier and was in his backpack under the gun went off along with a half-dozen simultaneous blasts on avenues of approach all about the Isolation Ward building.
The man next to the fifty was obliterated and the gun was destroyed.
Kane and Thao ran through the smoke to the Isolation Ward. Kane had the Swedish K tight to his shoulder while Thao was sticking with his crossbow. Their ears were ringing from the explosions. The TOW had to be on the second floor, in a room facing the Statue.
Thao split off to the right on the first floor, while Kane went left. He took the concrete stairs at the end two at a time until he reached the landing. He halted, taking a deep breath. Double-checked that a round was in the chamber of the K, bolt pulled back. Thao would be on his end. No more time.
Kane stepped to the side, pieing his way to see down the hall, slice by slice until he could see straight down—to a door three meters away.
Isolation ward. Pope had said it could be sealed off. But the wood was old and Kane was pissed. He moved forward and kicked the door open, the K ready. A man was silhouetted in the hallway less that a meter away, one arm in a sling, a pistol in his good hand. He turned toward Kane, leveling the gun.
Kane lightly twitched the trigger of the K twice, both rounds hitting the man in the head.
There was a loud click which Kane recognized. The TOW had been fired, but there was a 1.5 second delay while the missile’s gyroscope spun up. He dashed forward, almost to the door, when the missile launched. A flash of bright light exploded through the doorway with the backblast, followed by a loud whoosh of the missile leaving the tube.
Kane jumped, spinning in the air, firing on automatic, aiming at the bulky tracker unit on the side of the launch tube. The fact a man’s head was pressed up against the optics and in the way was of no concern. Merrick’s special 9mm rounds blew the head apart and Kane kept his finger on the trigger as he slammed into the floor, the bullets shattering the tracker.
At 280 meters per second, the missile had already covered half the distance to the head of the Statue of Liberty when the tracker was destroyed. The missile, no longer receiving commands from the guide wire, arced up into the sky and then down, splashing harmlessly into New York harbor.
The bolt of the Swedish K slammed forward, the gun empty.
The air in the room was thick with smoke from the initial launch of the TOW, a charge having propelled the missile out of the tube until the main motor had kicked in seven meters out.
Kane looked up at the muzzle of an M-16 pointing at his face. Holding the gun was a tall, thin, blond-haired man. He was dressed in black fatigues and wore an armband with an IRA flag on it.
“You fuck—” he began, but then Thao came through the door, fast, arm swinging, and his machete sliced through the man’s right wrist, leaving the severed hand still grasping the pistol grip of the weapon as blood spurted from the stump.
The man didn’t seem to comprehend what had happened for a couple of seconds. That was enough time for Thao to jerk the rifle out of his other hand and Kane to get to his feet and reload the K.
The man stared at the blood pulsing out of his wrist, but Thao was already at work, whipping a bandage out of his kit. He started to secure it over the bleeding, but the man’s other hand went across his body for the pistol in the holster, so Kane grabbed it. He applied pressure until the bone snapped.
Kane shoved the last surviving Sword of Saint Patrick to the floor, his back against the wall. Thao struggled to fix the bandage in place. Kane placed his boot against the man’s chest to keep him in position.
“What’s your name?” Kane asked.
“Fuck you,” the man said. “You coppers?”
“No,” Kane said. “Are you Kevin Flanagan?”
The acknowledgement flashed in the man’s eyes. “Who are you?”
Thao cinched the bandage as best he could. “I will have to put a tourniquet on the arm.”
“No tourniquet,” Flanagan said. He moved the stub toward his mouth, bit down on the bandage and used his teeth to rip it off. Blood flowed freely. “I’m not going to lock up.” He put the amputated forearm in his lap. “I’m willing to die for a free Ireland.”
Thao looked up at Kane, then slowly stood.
“You’re going to,” Kane assured him. The other two TOW missiles were in their cases, stacked against the wall.
“I am sorry, Dai Yu,” Thao said. “I reacted. I should have—”
Kane waved off Thao’s apology. “You saved my life.” He looked down at Flanagan. “Do you have any last words for your wife, Caitlyn?”
Flanagan barked a harsh laugh. “’Caitlyn’? Why would I have any words for her? Are you daft, man?”
Kane shrugged. “I was just asking. You don’t have much longer.”
Flanagan’s face was pale.
He shook his head. “Caitlyn?” He repeated as if he didn’t understand. “Why would you be asking me about her?”
“I talked to her last night,” Kane said.
Flanagan began laughing, a manic edge to it, the dark realization of death tainting it, along with something else: “Poor Caitlyn’s been dead for months, you sod.”
21
Wednesday Morning,
10 August 1977
UPPER BAY, NEW YORK HARBOR
From the first immigrant, a 17-year-old girl from Cork, Ireland on 1 January 1892 to a Norwegian seaman in 1954, over 12 million have passed through Ellis Island, just a kilometer from the lady who had just narrowly survived decapitation.
From the Blackout the previous month, on top of the economic toll of the past decade, the city across the Bay, was also suffering under the fear of Son of Sam. In the dark waters to the south and east, past the Verrazano Narrows, at the edge of the Lower Bay, where the shelf dropped off into deep water, were six bodies weighed down by the very weapons with which they’d attempted to attack the Statue.
A victory of one sort in the midst of the gloom.
The Statue of Liberty’s torch glittered in the darkness above a pre-dawn fog, a solitary beacon in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor as it had been ever since 1886.
GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Kane took the steps down to his apartment, already having decided what remained of this night was worthy of sheet-breaking. He and Thao had spent hours loading the bodies and weapons onto the zodiac, taking them out to Lower Bay and dumping them. He’d left his Montagnard friend at the diner with instructions to call Strong and let him know the situation was resolved. Then he walked home.
